It was raining 3s Thursday night and the University of Northern Colorado men's basketball team was pouring them in.

The Bears hit a season-high 15 3-pointers and it proved to be the difference in a convincing 78-63 Big Sky Conference victory over Idaho State before a crowd of 1,784 at the Butler-Hancock Sports Pavilion.

The victory snapped a two-game losing streak for UNC (4-7 in conference, 6-13 overall) and kept the Bears from dropping into last place in the Big Sky. Idaho State dropped to 3-8, 4-16.

No one was hotter for the Bears than junior guard Paul Garnica, who led the 3-point barrage by equaling his career-best with six 3-pointers on his way to a season-high 21 points off the bench.

All of his field goals in the game came from 3-point range where he was 6-of-8.

He almost had a seventh 3, but was fouled in the act of shooting and made all of his three free throws on the play.

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Even Garnica couldn't remember a game where he shot like this since high school where he was the city of San Antonio's all-time leading scorer averaging more than 30 points per game at Robert E. Lee High.

However, UNC coach B.J. Hill wasn't about to give Garnica the green light offensively until he proved himself worthy by playing well on the defensive end of the floor, where he had been struggling.

"I'd love to be able to play him 20 minutes whether it is at home or on the road, wherever," Hill said. "But again, he has got to buy in to being as consistent defensively as he is offensively. And once he figures that out, he is going to play a lot more."

It also helped that Garnica got on a roll early as he nailed his first two 3-pointers early in the game to give UNC a 13-9 lead. However, it wasn't until the second half that he really got going as he scored 15 of his points after the break on 4-of-5 shooting from 3-point range.

"Especially since he (Hill) saw the first two fall, he had confidence and was letting me shoot it, so I had confidence as well," Garnica said. "It is a non-spoken agreement with me and him that he gives the head nod and I will shoot."

Of course, even the defensive-minded Hill couldn't help but give the green light to his entire team the way it was shooting the basketball. The Bears shot 56.3 percent from the field for the game, but were an incredible 10-of-12 from 3-point range (83.3 percent) in the second half.

There was no surprise that junior guard Tate Unruh was once again lighting it up from 3-point range, finishing 5-of-6 from beyond the arc with 15 points – his fifth game in a row at home with 5 3-pointers and his seventh game with at least five 3-pointers this season.

However, it was somewhat of a surprise that sophomore forward Tim Huskisson – who shoots 35.9 percent from 3-point range – nailed 3-of-4 shots from beyond the arc and scored 13 of his 15 points in the second half.

Between Huskisson and Garnica, the Bears were able to push a 29-28 lead at halftime to a lead as big as 23 with 3 minutes left in the game.

"When you look at the stats, we had one guy who took one 3 (in the second half) and missed, but all the rest were shooting and they were shooting about 50 percent," Huskisson said. "But any night we get that, guys are feeling confident and coach is going to give us more freedom to be able to let it fly as the game goes on."